


Bull City Blues

by rhysiana



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Grad School Stress, Holster and Bitty Start a Vlog Channel, M/M, Med Student Ransom, Mostly Holster POV, Pining, Ransom and Holster Move to Durham, Realizations, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-03-26 05:37:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 18,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13851210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhysiana/pseuds/rhysiana
Summary: In which Ransom chooses Duke for medical school, the boys move to Durham, and Holster has to figure out what to do with his life.





	1. Moving

**Author's Note:**

> This has been in my WIPs for over a year, and I promised myself I'd start posting it after R&H's graduation in the comic, so even though this possible future for them has been totally quashed in canon, here we go...

Just because Ransom was the one with the Excel obsession didn’t mean Holster didn’t find great utility in making his own lists. Which was why he started making one as soon as Rans announced he had chosen Duke for med school.

  * Find a place to rent in Durham 
    * Walking distance? Bus route proximity?
  * Pack all our shit
  * Figure out how to move all our shit
  * Get a copy of Rans’ schedule 
    * cursory googling says we should be there by the end of July
  * Locate a gym? (Duke has no hockey team, only lax!!! ugh)



After the second item on the list, he had a vague thought that maybe he shouldn’t be assuming he would be going with Rans, but honestly, how would Rans survive medical school without him? Just to be safe, though, he found a way to subtly bring it up at dinner (“Bro, you have any thoughts about what kind of place we should look for in Durham?”), and when Rans immediately opened his laptop to start a pro/con rental spreadsheet, Holster let himself relax back into his role as Coral Reef Caretaker and got on with organizing their lives.

***

They managed to make it to graduation without Rans keeling over during finals before he could walk across the stage. Both of their families came, of course, and used up _all_ the extra tickets they had managed to scrounge from their extensive cross-campus network of contacts. (Not that Holster’s youngest sister seemed particularly appreciative.) Finding a restaurant for dinner for a combined party as large as theirs had also been a bit challenging, but when Holster had asked his mother if he and Ransom should each make plans for their own families, she just rolled her eyes. “Please, honey, we all know better. What would be the point?” Besides, she liked Ransom’s parents.

They did actually go home with their respective families after graduation, though, for what would presumably be the last time. When Holster walked into his bedroom, it felt a little surreal. Totally normal, but at the same time, like it should be momentous. In about a month, he really wasn’t going to be living here anymore.

“Move!” his sister Jenna said, shoving at his back with the box in her arm. He stepped aside.

“You didn’t have to carry that.”

“I know that,” and yes, there was an eye-roll, “but if I picked first, I knew I wouldn’t get stuck with a heavy box, and I’ll get brownie points with Mom.”

“So calculating. Do the parents know you’re so cunning?”

“Shhhhh, it’s our secret.”

“Uh-huh.” Holster narrowed his eyes at her. “Oh, no, I get it. You want all the boxes out of the car so you can claim it.”

“You’re done with college! It’s officially mine now!”

Holster smiled and ruffled her hair just to annoy her. “True. Your first act in your new car will be to drive me to the car dealership tomorrow.”

Jenna shrieked, hugged him, and then dashed down the hall. He didn’t suspect he’d actually get any more help with the boxes.

***

Holster ended up with a used red Jeep Grand Cherokee, only a few years old, because it had decent cargo space and he could fit in it, which were really his only criteria. Jenna approved, but possibly only because she got permanent possession of the keys to the Car of the Eldest Birkholtz Driving-Aged Child. Just wait until she figured out this was their parents’ way of pawning off errands and carpool duty.

He spent the rest of May going through all the stuff in his room with his mother’s help. (It was fine; he already had all the stuff he wouldn’t want his mother to see in his college boxes.) All the outgrown hockey equipment went in a donation pile once it was determined none of it was of a useful size for any of his sisters, since they were tall, yes, but not really promising to have his build. “Not that hockey is a requirement,” his mom commented. “I think Isabel might actually take dance next year. Sitting in a heated building for practices might be nice for a change.”

“I’m not sure they’re called ‘practices’ if it’s dance, Mom.”

“Oh, be quiet. I’m sure I’ll figure it out. Now what should we do with all these board games? This is going to be _my_ room once I get you out of here. A _child-free_ zone,” she said with great relish.

Holster laughed and went back to sorting. He didn’t mind. He wanted to see just how few boxes he could get down to. They still needed to get Ransom’s stuff in the car, after all.

***

Holster pulled into Ransom’s family’s driveway in Toronto just in time to be drafted into prepping for the Canada Day festivities. Two days, a huge litany of names of extended Oluransi family members that Holster had still never managed remember (“just call everyone Auntie, bro, it’s easier”), and an _excellent_ amount of food later, they managed to cram all of Ransom’s stuff in the car and hit the road.

They spent July 3rd as they had for the past five years, taking selfies on both sides of Niagara Falls, and then spent the Fourth of July with Holster’s family. More fireworks, more family (Ransom was much better at remembering names), and a lot more food, but then they were truly, officially starting their road trip to North Carolina.

“Dude, how did we managed to get all our stuff in here?” Ransom asked, surveying the boxes stacked to the roof with almost no space left between them before he shut the rear door for the last time.

“Mad Tetris skills,” Holster responded smugly. They exchanged fist bumps and hit the road.

***

_Two days and way too many hours in the car later…_

 

“Nice, Holtzy! How’d you find this place?” Ransom exclaimed as he got out of the car in front of their rental house.

“Duke has a page of rental properties advertised specifically to grad students. I settled on this place because it’s close enough to a direct bus route that you can get to campus even if I have the car. I’m told you could bike, too, if you want. I guess that’s actually practical, down here where they don’t get snow.”

“’Swawesome. You thought of everything.”

Holster placed a modest hand in the center of his chest. “I try.” He grinned. “Okay, lemme run next door to get the key from the landlords and then we can figure out all the stuff I forgot after all.”

As it turned out, most of what was missing was furniture. Holster’s mother had anticipated this as much as possible, so they did have an inflatable mattress apiece and some folding camp chairs to get them through the first couple of days. Google revealed that the nearest Ikea was in Charlotte, a few hours away, but since they had a few weeks to get settled before Ransom was expected for orientation, they made a full day-trip experience out of it, and hauled back a rented trailer with enough stuff to furnish the basics of their small house.

They spent the next week putting everything together, arranging everything to their mutual satisfaction, making the inevitable runs to Target for various small items that were still needed. It was like their time in the attic, but bigger. Better. More like home.

Holster was feeling very optimistic about life after college.

***

They were sitting at opposite ends of the couch, legs tangled in the middle. Holster had a copy of _The Independent_ , a local newspaper that focused on events, and Ransom was looking at some pre-orientation packet stuff. Holster nudged Ransom’s knee. “Dude, you hungry?”

“Uh, yeah?” _Always_ was implied.

“Let’s go to Waffle House. They’re supposed to be, like, a _thing_ down here.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were sliding into a booth. Ransom looked around with interest. “From the way Bitty described them, I was expecting something a lot… uh, less nice?”

The guy in the booth behind Holster let out a snort. Smiling and clearly ignoring the way his wife was rolling her eyes about him jumping into some stranger’s conversation, he turned around and said, “This one is brand new. It used to be in that shitty building down at the end of the off-ramp from I-40. The cashier told me last time they had just been waiting for this lot to become available so they could move to a permanent location that they weren’t renting.”

“Yeah?” Holster said, interested. “What used to be here?”

“A falling down shack surrounded by headstones!” The guy whipped out his phone and called up Google Street View, which hadn’t updated the photos for this stretch of road yet. “Apparently he was an engraver? But after he died, his will was in probate for a few years, so the Waffle House people had to wait for forever to get the land. Like, we’ve lived here eight years and that shack looked like it was going to be a permanent fixture. It was kind of a shock it never fell over on its own.”

Ransom’s eyes widened comically. Holster grinned. Oh, this was going to be good.

“Headstones?” Ransom’s shoulders crept up a little higher and he shivered. “Does it feel… cold in here to you?”

“Bro, you’re sitting under the vent. He was just an engraver, it’s not like there was a graveyard here.”

“Uh-huh.” Ransom studied the menu on the placemat with fierce concentration.

Their server arrived. “What can I get you?”

“You first, Rans.”

“A peanut butter waffle, hashbrowns, bacon, orange juice, and coffee,” Ransom rattled off.

“And you, hon?” she asked, turning to Holster.

“The All-Star special, eggs over easy, bacon, with hashbrowns all the way. And coffee.”

The waitress stared at him and then looked suspiciously between their booth and the one behind Holster. “Did he put you up to this?” she asked.

Holster raised his eyebrows. The woman in the other booth laughed and buried her face in her hands. The guy raised his hands to protest his innocence. “I didn’t say a word, I swear.”

“Oh god, there’s two of you now,” she muttered. “I’ll be right back with your drinks.”

Holster twisted in his seat again. “What the hell?” he asked.

The woman stopped laughing and wiped her eyes. “He’s the only one who ever orders hashbrowns all the way. Apparently they’d never had anyone actually order them and mean it before we started coming here. Congratulations, you are now part of the legend.”

“Bro,” Holster said, holding out his fist.

The guy returned the fist bump immediately. “There are just clearly not enough people in the world who understand how to commit to a hashbrown order. We have to show them how it’s done.”

His wife shot Ransom a look of commiseration as she collected their check and herded her husband to the cash register.

Their food arrived just as Holster was considering getting up to inspect the jukebox selections. Ransom poured a small puddle of syrup out on his plate and tasted it suspiciously, wrinkling his nose. “Canadian snob,” chirped Holster.

“I just have _standards_ ,” Ransom retorted. “Unlike some people.” He looked askance at Holster’s hashbrowns.

“Just think of it like poutine,” Holster suggested.

Ransom gave him a scandalized look and whipped out his phone to take a picture. “I’m telling the group chat you said that. Jack will _never_ let you live that down. Never!”

Holster continued to eat serenely.

Yes, living in Durham was going to be great.

***

Holster convinced Ransom to give himself an entire week to explore their new town, which he carefully did not refer to as a “vacation,” knowing that would trip Ransom over into feeling like he should be doing something to prepare for school. Instead, this was important life orientation. Which happened to include going to play disc golf on the course in the woods between East and West Campus.

“No, you cannot wear the salmon shorts.”

“But they’re golf attire.”

“It’s _disc_ golf, dammit, I refuse to be seen with you walking around looking like a LAX bro.”

Ransom gasped. “How dare you?!”

Neither of them were very good, but Holster couldn’t think of a better way to spend a whole day than laughing at each other’s terrible shots and chirping each other as they searched for discs lost in the leaf litter.

They figured out where to park to run different sections of the American Tobacco Trail. The competitive part of Holster kind of wanted to make it a goal to run the entire twenty-two miles, but the part of him that didn’t enjoy cardio that much talked him off the ledge. Besides, it was July. Much too hot to be thinking things like that. But the edges of the trail were very green. He hadn’t expected to see such wild-looking vegetation in a fairly major metro area. Ransom, of course, looked it up after Holster commented on it.

“Wisteria and kudzu vines. Super invasive, apparently. And pine trees and oak trees.”

“I thought you were doing med school, not botany.”

“Shut up and learn something, you ass.” Ransom threw a pillow at his head.

Holster caught it and threw it back. “Let’s go see the new Star Trek movie. We should locate the nearest movie theater, after all.”

“Is this the one where they make Sulu canonically gay?”

“Yup.”

“’Swawesome.”

They watched a ridiculous amount of Netflix. For some reason, Holster had allowed Ransom to get him hooked on _Republic of Doyle_ , insisting Holster needed more exposure to Canadian culture, and they spent a great deal of time yelling incredulously at the TV as Jake made consistently terrible decisions about his personal life between solving cases. They may have started doing shots whenever he got punched in the face. Ransom definitely threatened to smother Holster with a pillow if he didn’t stop listing off all the other shows every single guest actor of the week had been in.

It was the best week Holster could ever remember.


	2. Settling In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to add notes to the end of the last chapter, so quick, before you dive into this one, go look at this great art by littlestpersimmon of [Ransom & Holster moving in](https://rhysiana.tumblr.com/post/147412674288/littlestpersimmon-adam-and-justin-moving)! I've had that bookmarked as inspiration ever since I first started writing this fic (...1.5 years ago, yikes).

All good things had to come to an end, though. Eventually August began and it was time for Ransom to start orientation. Holster got up in the morning and made coffee, then drove Rans to campus for the first day, just to be sure he’d be there on time.

“I’ll figure out the bus schedule to get home, yeah?” Rans said as he got out, one hand still on the door.

“Yeah, sure. Just call me if it looks like it’s going to be a pain or something and I’ll come get you.”

“Later, bro.”

“Later!”

And then Holster found himself at loose ends.

He sat down at the desk in his room and opened his laptop. He checked his email, idly scrolled through various social media accounts, and then wondered what the hell he was going to do with his life.

He logged in to his bank account to check the balance, then his investment account, and then pulled up his financial spreadsheet. Might as well try to get a comprehensive picture of where he stood before he tried to make any real plans.

Huh. His checking account was a little lower than usual, thanks to his week of not-vacation, but he’d expected that. But his investments were actually doing better than he’d thought, having not actually looked at them in detail since he’d decided how to divide up his graduation money into his various index and tracking funds.

He grabbed a notepad and a pen, which he tapped on the desk as he thought. Day to day, he actually spent very little, and he certainly had enough to pay his share of the rent and groceries for months into the future. Maybe he should try putting his major to use. He drew up a plan to diversify his portfolio further, keeping his surer-bet long-term investment strategy largely intact, but moving money out of some of the more experimental tracking funds into an account he could play with for even higher-yield short-term investing.

Then he opened his newsfeeds. And read, and read, and read, taking copious notes all the while. Sure, he hadn’t really been paying attention to them in the last couple of weeks, but he’d set up his alerts and feeds and bookmarks of sites to visit daily over the course of four years in the econ department, so it wasn’t like he was starting blind here. He gave himself three days for research, and then he’d start picking individual stocks.

Excellent. Now he had a plan.

***

All in all, Holster was pleased with how well they’d gotten settled in, but the remaining big thing still on his original list was to find a gym. This was the main downside of renting a house rather than an apartment in a complex.

“Bro, I got a deal for six sessions at Crossfit on Groupon,” Holster said, leaning over the back of the couch to look over Ransom’s shoulder.

“Huh?” Ransom said, then blinked as his brain processed the words he’d just heard. “Oh, cool.”

“Wanna go on Saturday?”

“Yeah, that works. There’s my white coat ceremony on Friday, but the weekend is free. Classes don’t start until Monday.”

“Yup, got it on the calendar,” Holster said, gesturing at the new whiteboard on the fridge. “Who else is gonna take pictures for your parents?”

Ransom grinned at him. “I know my mom appreciates it, seriously.”

“’Course. Your mom’s the best.”

Holster dressed carefully that Friday—not up to Ransom’s standards of style or anything, but his shirt was ironed—then drove to campus and made his way through the confusing warren on West Campus to the room where the reception was being held. Ransom’s face lit up as soon as he saw him.

“Guys, this is H—, uh, Adam!” he said, throwing his arm around Holster’s shoulders. Holster smiled politely at the other med students as Ransom introduced them.

“Cool, man, good to meet you,” one guy (was his name Joe? Holster was pretty sure it was Joe) said.

“Yeah,” said the girl (Christine, Holster was more confident in this identification), “we’ve heard a lot about you this week.”

Ransom shrugged easily when Holster looked at him. “It’s not like I have any stories from college that don’t have you in them.”

Holster felt his cheeks heat, weirdly happy to know that Ransom had been talking about him to all these new people. The hour of mingling passed quickly as they fell into their easy tag-team style of storytelling, practiced tales of life in the Haus that had Christine and Joe and various other bystanders in stitches.

And then it was time for the med students to receive their white coats. The head of the program solemnly explained that this ceremony could be seen as even more important than their graduation day, because it marked their “entry into the profession of medicine.” Holster recorded the whole speech on his phone, which he immediately emailed to Ransom’s parents, and then took another video of Rans actually receiving his coat, plus at least fifty pictures. He’d let Rans pick the best ones later. He knew he was beaming as Ransom came back to him, now in his official white coat.

“Dude, I’m so proud of you. Look at you, all professional and shit.”

Ransom ducked his head, uncharacteristically shy. “It feels kind of real now, you know?”

Holster clapped him on the shoulder and then pulled him in for a hug. “It’s real, and you’re gonna be so great,” he whispered in Ransom’s ear. He pulled back and smiled. “Come on, you ready to go home?”

“Yeah, let’s go.”

***

They left Crossfit the next morning and broke into laughter in the parking lot. Holster actually laughed so hard he cried. “Oh my god,” he said, leaning against the car to try to catch his breath. “When do you think the real workout was supposed to start?”

“Seriously. I don’t think this is gonna cut it. There’s a gym on campus, let’s look into that. We can just work out together.”

“Good plan.”

Except it wasn’t, as it turned out, because Ransom wasn’t allowed to sponsor Holster for a family or spouse membership. Holster felt like he’d been doused in cold water. He blinked a few times, then laughed it off. “Oh, yeah, of course. That makes sense.” _We’re not doing the same thing anymore_ , he reminded himself. “Well, let’s try the local Y, then. They’ll at least have a weight room and a track.”

“Yeah, bro, that’s probably easiest. And it’s not that far away. It’ll be fine.”

***

And so they settled into a routine: an early morning run before it got too hot, a quick breakfast, coffee for Ransom to take on his way out, and then dinner together in the evenings. Which was great… but it meant Holster had a lot of free time during the day before Ransom came home. His investment project seemed to be going well, but there were only so many articles he could read in a day, and only so many decisions he should try to make on a short-term basis. By the second week, he was bored. So bored.

**AB:** I’m so bored, Bitty.

**EB:** Did you actually finally watch everything on Netflix?

**AB:** Very funny.

**EB:** Skype me, I’m baking.

Holster flipped his laptop back open and called Bitty. When the picture cleared, he could tell Bitty’s laptop was set up on the counter under the cabinets.

“Is this what the kitchen looks like from your height, Bits?”

Bitty glared at him and pointed at the screen with one flour-covered hand. “Shut up, you, or so help me, I will end this call.”

“But then who will you procrastinate with?”

“I will have you know there are still plenty of other people in this house, _just_ as entertaining as you.”

Holster gasped dramatically. “You wound me! Say it isn’t so! I refuse to believe replacing me is so easy.”

“Okay, true, you and Ransom are pretty irreplaceable,” Bitty said wistfully.

“Yeah, we miss the Haus, too.”

“So now that you’ve gotten Ransom settled in, what are you going to do? Been applying to lots of jobs?”

Had it been his mother asking, Holster would absolutely have pulled up local job listings and read off a bunch of likely sounding prospects, but… well, he figured of all the people he could possibly be talking to, Bitty would be the most likely to understand. “Uh, no.”

Bitty looked up at the computer screen in surprise. “No?”

Holster drummed his fingers on the table a few times. “So here’s the thing: I realized this is the first time in my life I’ve ever had real free time. The first time I’ve had a choice about what to do with my time.”

Bitty put his rolling pin aside and tilted his head slightly as he focused on Holster. “Oh. I guess that’s right. Because before Samwell, you were…”

“In Juniors, yeah.”

“I forget how much like Jack you are sometimes.”

Holster made a face of denial, and Bitty waved a hand at him.

“You know what I mean. The whole semi-pro teen athlete thing.”

“I mean, you know, too.”

Bitty scoffed. “Please.”

Holster raised his eyebrows at the camera. “You telling me seriously competitive figure skating is less intensive than NCAA hockey? Because I seem to remember someone being the fastest skater on the team with just a few years of no-contact rec league under his belt.”

Bitty reddened and went back to concentrating on his crust. “Okay, fine, whatever. Yes, I get it.” Then he looked up again. “But I did take a break in there. The couple years I had before Samwell really were easier. Like, a normal high school life, really. I was less busy than Coach.” He sounded faintly surprised to remember this.

Holster nodded. “Yeah, exactly. So how did you make that transition? What did you do with all that time?”

Bitty frowned in thought. “Um… baking? Music? Homework? I think that’s when I started my vlog, actually.” Then he blinked and smiled brightly at Holster. “ _You_ should start a vlog!”

“What, me? No. What would it even be about?”

“Yes, you, Mr. Birkholtz. It’s not like you lack a willingness to share your opinions. And you’re living in a whole new state! What have you even seen of Durham so far?”

“Uh, campus, Target, our neighborhood, that sad Crossfit we won’t be going back to, and the running trail? And the Waffle House.”

“Well, I’m not gonna deny that the Waffle House is an important cultural experience, but really. You bought yourself that car, after all; better use it.”

Holster felt his mouth twitching into a smile and tried to get it back under control.

“The main thing, I think,” Bitty continued thoughtfully, “is just to find something to do. You can’t say you want to take advantage of having the first real free time in your life and then just sit around doin’ nothing. Might as well go ahead and get a job, if you’re just gonna do that.”

Holster nodded in acknowledgement and then adroitly changed the subject. “Hey, what should I make for dinner?” Which successfully set Bitty off on a forty-five-minute brainstorming and recipe recitation session, and Holster got meal plans for the rest of the week out of it.

“That’s what we should do, you know,” Bitty said as he wound down.

“What is?” Holster said, still scribbling the last few things on his grocery list.

“A joint vlog channel. You could go out and discover new things about Durham, and then I could respond with a recipe for the week. I bet I could even get some kind of credit for it if I tell Prof. Atley I’m studying how to help former serious athletes transition to a less caloric-intensive lifestyle.”

Holster blinked at him. “Better watch out, Bitty, that sounded awfully academic.”

“Oh, shut up.” Bitty stuck out his tongue.

“I bet you could interview Bad Bob about it,” Holster said more seriously.

“And some of Coach’s players, too. And, well, Coach. Hmmm…”

Holster pulled the copy of _The Independent_ across the table to see what he could find for possible vlog fodder. Clearly this was a thing that was happening now.

***

**[Camera cuts on to show Holster in the act of leaning back in his desk chair, the wall of his room somewhat visible around/behind his rather wide shoulders. On the wall: a Samwell pennant, a Jack Zimmermann poster (signed), a whiteboard with a calendar drawn on it and marked in multiple colors, a somewhat disorganized half-height bookshelf below it.]**

“Hey Bitty! So our first week’s Durham exploration theme is baseball. As you know, it’s not currently hockey season (and the Hurricanes didn’t make it into the playoffs anyway, so even if we’d gotten here earlier in the summer, it still wouldn’t have been hockey season, more’s the pity), so I have had to turn my sports interests in other directions. _Tragically_ , Duke doesn’t even _have_ a hockey team, which means there will be no clear antidote to my having to pass their horrible lacrosse team’s practices whenever I go past the campus. _Why_ do they have lacrosse? Ugh. Also, we have had explained to us by a truly disturbing number of people the process for camping out for Duke basketball tickets, and it sounds really stupid? Like, you go and intentionally camp in an area not intended for camping at all, in the middle of campus, surrounded by other stupid people who you can hear through the walls of your tent on every side, constantly, for four days, and they’re increasingly likely to fall on you and collapse your tent as they all get increasingly drunk, and it would be hypocritical of me to say I hate drunk people, but let’s be honest, I hate most people whether they’re drunk or sober, so that all just sounds like my idea of hell. Also, basketball is boring.

“But I digress! As I was saying, baseball. So I was scrolling around on Twitter and I came upon the hashtag #sansaball, and you know I am a huge _Game of Thrones_ fan, so I clicked, and it turns out to be this awesome thing where a local author decided to go to Durham Bulls games and tweet as if she were Sansa Stark attending a tournament. And then I looked at the Bulls’ schedule and found that their next home game was against the Buffalo Bisons, and it was clearly A SIGN that we had to go. I mean, it’s not like I was a huge Bisons fan when I was living in Buffalo, but I did go to a number of their games as a kid growing up there, because we all did, so. Tickets. (Which I did not have to camp in a huge crowd for four days to get, thank you very much.)

“The game was pretty good, and Rans could appreciate it, too, since the Bisons are a Blue Jays farm team and you know how he is about supporting Toronto teams, even if they suck. *cough*Leafs*cough* He wasn’t nearly as interested in the #sansaball tweets, but I’ve made him watch enough GoT now that at least he got them, and _I_ , for one, thought following the tweets from the stands was fan-fucking-tastic. Of course, it’s also Triple-A ball, so there’s all sorts of fan things they do on the field, like mascot races and t-shirt cannons and all that. They’ve got a nice stadium in the part of downtown that looks like it’s all new, but the people next to us were talking about how at least they brought the bull sign over from the old ball park…”

**[Video intercut with footage from Holster’s phone, showing[a large painted plywood sign of a bull standing on grass](https://www.flickr.com/photos/trainman/4955188263). “Hit Bull Win Steak” is written across the bull. “Hit Grass Win Salad” is written across the grass.]**

“…and if they hit a homerun, the bull snorts smoke. The tail also goes up and down and the eyes blink red. However, now that I know the old ballpark allowed people to walk behind the stands and get behind the bull, and the guy back there would let little kids work the tail and the eyes pretty much whenever, I, too, am disgruntled. Thanks a bunch, informed locals next to me.

“Now, since this is me, I’ve decided that no video of mine will be complete without some sort of media review, so let us now turn to the cinema classic that is _Bull Durham_. Bitty, how had I not watched this before? Why did you let me go through life in such ignorance? No!”

**[Holster raises one finger in a shushing gesture directly in front of the camera and looks dramatically away.]**

“Don’t tell me that you haven’t seen it either! I refuse to believe this! You’re from the south, you _must_ have seen it. (And if you haven’t, I command you to watch it before your next video and just claim it was a rewatch. Don’t disillusion me, dude. Let me have this.) Anyway, _this movie_. Kevin Costner in his true baseball movie glory. Susan Sarandon being sultry and putting up with no shit. Tim Robbins as a young idiot. It’s amazing. And I can see what people were talking about with the old ballpark—it really did have more soul. Kind of like the Haus: on the verge of falling apart, but somehow more ’swawesome because of it.

**[Holster pauses briefly and pushes his glasses up his nose again.]**

“Some background notes, because you know I researched this: At the time of the movie, the Bulls were a Single-A farm team for the Atlanta Braves, instead of Triple-A for the Tampa Bay Rays. The Informed People Next to Me lamented that the current incarnation of the Bulls will never have a young Chipper Jones playing for them before he makes it to The Show, because really good players only stop in Triple-A for, like, a few games, or when they’re recovering from an injury, which was kind of a bummer. They also had some strong opinions about the superiority of the National League vs. the American League, but eh, the Bisons and Blue Jays are both AL, so I’m used to it.

“And I intend to also do a restaurant review each week, but this week we just had stadium food, so if you (or any other viewers) ever make it down here to a baseball game, I can recommend the hot dogs, but more importantly, the doughnut vendor! Like, local gourmet doughnuts. They have their own location as well, so I’ll try to go there and do a real review later. There’s also a new craft beer brewery that brews just for the ballpark, and I found them decent.

“Right, that’s all I’ve got this week. Bitty, I will see you next Monday!”

**[Holster waves, then leans forward and the video cuts to black.]**

***

Bitty’s response recipe: beer-braised chicken and corn on the cob, to be served with a summer salad. “There’s a farmer’s market near you, Holster, I checked.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All Crossfit opinions here have been stolen from my brother, a former varsity wrestler. I have many other friends who enjoy it a great deal; I cast no personal aspersions.
> 
> All baseball opinions can be directly attributed to me, though.


	3. Finding a Hobby

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for a relative lack of Ransom in this chapter; the importance of this as a bridging chapter will hopefully become clear shortly!

“Hey, Bitty! Well, this has been an interesting week of firsts in the life of Adam Birkholtz. In my constant efforts to become a more well-rounded person (don’t scoff! I can hear you scoffing from down here), I did indeed sign up for that social dance class offered by the arts council…”

***

“So it sounds like you boys have settled in well,” Holster’s mom said. It was mid-afternoon on a weekday, so she sounded only mildly distracted.

“Yeah, Rans seems comfortable with his schedule now. No freak outs.” It was true; Ransom had weathered the start of the semester at a new school in a new city really smoothly. Like, suspiciously so. It almost made Holster worry _more_ , which was stupid, and he knew it. He’d been watching a lot of _30 Rock_ to compensate.

“Mm-hmm. And you, honey?”

“Oh, you know me, Mom, I’m fine.” And it wasn’t even like he was lying to her. She even knew about his day trading plan and her only response had been that she was glad he was taking the chance to figure out what he wanted to do. It wasn’t like she judged him for working from home. Still. “How are your new students coming along? Are you sick of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle’ again yet?”

She groaned and he scanned the newspaper in front of him idly as he listened to her talk about which of her new piano students showed any promise or were likely to drop it after a month, when they (or their parents) realized they weren’t destined to be the next Mozart.

“Oh, shoot, I’ve got to run,” she said, interrupting her own story about one of her more tenacious long-term students and the piece he seemed determined to master this quarter. “It’s my day to take Isabel’s carpool to tap class. Love you, sweetie!”

“Love you, too, Mom,” Holster said absently, eyes having just landed on an ad reminding people to sign up for fall classes at the art center, with a list of course offerings underneath. He texted Bitty.

 **AB:** Hey, did you ever take dance classes?

 **EB:** Are you joking? Of course!

 **AB:** Oh, ballet for figure skating, right.

 **EB:** And some ballroom. Plus cotillion, but everyone does that.

 **AB:** The hell is that?

 **EB:** …

 **EB:** Sometimes I forget I’m dealing with damn Yankees all the time.

 **EB:** It’s an etiquette class run by the Junior League for middle schoolers. We’re supposed to learn manners and how to eat with the right fork and how to dance.

 **EB:** My cousins and I all did it. MooMaw registered us.

 **EB:** Which was good, I guess, because then I had to escort my cousin Annalee to her debutante ball when Trey promptly forgot everything he’d ever learned.

 **EB:** But I was the only one of the boys who ever had to use the dance part afterward anyway, so I guess it makes sense.

 **EB:** Anyway! Are you going to take a dance class? You should! It would be so much fun! You’ll have to tell me all about it!

Holster eyed the flood of texts on his phone and then checked the time.

 **AB:** Aren’t you in class right now?

 **EB:** …maybe

 **EB:** But you texted me first!

 **AB:** Turn your phone off and pay attention! I’m not answering to Jack if you fail a class.

 **EB:** [frowny face] Fine.

Holster checked the schedule again. The class met on Thursday nights, which was when Ransom had his Molecules, Cells, and Tissues study group. (It wasn’t weird that Holster had all of Ransom’s classes and groups memorized. They were written on the board, after all.) Surely that was a sign, right? The first class was even later that week.

He drummed his fingers against the table. Aside from Bitty being appalled at his lack of proper upbringing, he really wanted something else _active_ to do. Going to the gym by himself sucked, so he’d really only been doing it when Ransom could go, too, and there was only so much trail running he was willing to do, regardless of how many Instagram photos Jack seemed to post of geese and whatever he spotted on his own runs in Providence. Holster knew better. Geese were evil. And he’d watched _Dancing with the Stars_ ; this shit was bound to be athletic. And new. Learning something totally new would be nicely distracting.

He called the number to register.

***

Holster was lurking near the wall, trying to remember the last time he’d done something like this completely on his own. He’d always tried to pay attention to whatever looked interesting at Samwell, figuring he shouldn’t squander his time at college as long as he was there, and even if Rans couldn’t go with him to whichever event it was that had caught his eye, someone else from the team usually ended up tagging along. He’d watched a lot of weird student art films with Lardo, for instance. And he’d certainly never forget going to that Robert Reich economics lecture with Shitty.

But now he was standing in the arts council dance studio with a group of people he’d never met and wasn’t entirely sure he had anything in common with other than reading the same newspaper, feeling more out of place than he had since his first hockey practice at the age of five. Maybe not even then; he’d always known the other kids liked hockey. Looking at the variety of people in this room, he didn’t have a clue where to start trying to strike up a conversation. From the looks they were shooting him, he suspected he stuck out here for more than just his height. Possibly because he was here by himself and they’d mostly come in pairs or groups; possibly because he was wearing jeans and an old Sabres t-shirt rather than, like, dance-y clothes. Ransom would have had some choice comments about his wardrobe if he’d been there, for sure.

He shouldn’t have gotten here so early. Well, he wouldn’t make that mistake again, now that he knew where it is.

He was saved from ducking out in search of a water fountain just to relieve the awkwardness by the instructor coming in and clapping her hands to get their attention.

“Hello, everyone! My name is Caroline, and I’d like to welcome you to Beginning Social Dance. We’ll be covering a wide variety of dance styles in this class to give you a taste of a little bit of everything from classical ballroom to swing. There’s no expectation that you have any dance experience before this, so I hope you’re all ready to have fun!”

Something about her voice and her smile at the end reminded him of Bitty, but not really Southern Hospitality Bitty, more the competitive and ready to take charge version of Bitty that had gotten him voted captain. She was wearing heels, but she moved confidently in them, probably because of the straps, and her dress was pretty, but flowy and comfortable (“ _A wrap dress, Adam, honestly,_ ” Jenna said in exasperation in his head), and her blonde hair was twisted up in some polished-looking style that he hadn’t seen move even the tiniest fraction; in short, she looked ready to teach some clueless idiots how to dance and take no shit while doing it.

He liked her already.

“Now, we’re going to start out easy today with the waltz, since I’m confident you can all count to three and you’ve undoubtedly seen it before in movies. But first, let’s take a few minutes to go around and introduce ourselves. Just say your name and maybe why you signed up for the class, if you want.”

They’d all naturally drifted into a rough circle while listening to her, so they went around in order. There was a couple there because they wanted to learn something before their wedding next spring; the contingent of tattooed hipsters all seemed to know each other and appeared to be there largely for the swing dance portion; and a girl who said she used to do ballet and modern dance as a kid and wanted to try something new now that she had free time again. Her boyfriend just said his name and “I’m with her,” but he said it with a smile and didn’t seem in any way unwilling to be there, so Holster mentally categorized him as a good bro.

Then it was his turn. “Hi, I’m H—Adam, and I just moved down here so my buddy could start med school at Duke. I’ve been playing hockey my whole life,” he gestured at his shirt, “but now that college is over, I thought I should try something different. This seems about as different from hockey as it can get.” He tried a charmingly self-deprecating grin at the end, but Caroline gave him a look of sharp consideration that left him wondering what he could possibly have done wrong.

He pushed it out of his mind as they settled into learning the basic box step without partners, just getting used to the movements and timing. “One, two, three, back, side, together, front, side, together…” Caroline repeated patiently, walking around the room and stopping to demonstrate next to anyone having trouble. Eventually the embarrassed giggles petered out and she added music, at which point things got a lot easier for Holster at least, because he’d heard waltzes on the piano so often growing up he was sure they were permanently ingrained in some part of his soul.

They were given a five-minute break for water before coming back to actually practice with partners. “Adam, why don’t you come be my model today?” Caroline said.

“Sure.” Had she noticed he was the only person there alone? Whatever, it wasn’t like he minded. He’d been used as an example at clinics and camps more times than he could count. He stepped up to the front of the room and let her arrange his arms.

“Okay, whichever person is going to lead, you’ll be stepping forward first, with your left foot. Followers, you’ll step backwards with your right at the same time.” She looked up at Holster. “Ready?”

“Yup, got it.” And he did. She counted off once just tapping on his arm and then they began. He didn’t step on her feet, which he considered a win, and they made it through the full pattern three times before she patted him on the shoulder and turned to the rest of the class to get them started.

Things continued like that for the rest of class. Holster followed Caroline around the room, doing his best not to loom when she was correcting others, doing what she told him when she beckoned him forth to demonstrate again. Eventually they even got to turns, at which point the embarrassed giggling started up again, but he thought everyone probably got it by the end.

He’d started checking the corners of the room for forgotten items out of some leftover team captaincy habit when Caroline laid a hand on his elbow. He looked down at her questioningly, noticing then that everyone else had trickled out the doors.

“You did well tonight,” she said, and, wow, that was a lot of subtext in four words.

“Thanks? I’m not sure if I should be complimented or insulted by the surprise in your voice,” he replied with a sideways sort of smile. He spotted a crumpled sweatshirt against the wall and bent to retrieve it.

“Well, honest answer, I was pretty convinced at first you were just here to pick up chicks.”

Holster straightened with a frown, and absently handed her the sweatshirt. It honestly hadn’t even crossed his mind.

“Sorry,” she said. “We just don’t get a lot of, uh…”

“Jocks?”

“Yeah.”

He shrugged. “Eh. Four years ago, you probably would have been right. Maybe even just two years ago. But I really did sign up because I was bored and needed some new active thing to do.”

“Well, you’ve got surprisingly good rhythm, so it looks like you’ll pick everything up quickly! Mind if I use you to demo again?”

“Sure, no problem. Good to know being the son of a piano teacher and twenty years of athletic training are finally paying off for something useful.”

She laughed, and he felt the acceptance settle over him. It wasn’t the same as having a new team, but it felt good anyway.

***

Ransom was home already when he got back, papers and books spread across the table as usual, despite having just been at a study session.

“Hey, bro, how was your night?”

Holster squeezed his shoulder on the way to get a drink from the fridge. “Good, man. Like, surprisingly good.”

“’Swawesome! What was it you were doing again?”

“Dance class,” Holster said, wiping a trickle of Gatorade away from the side of his mouth with the back of his hand. “Speaking of which, I saw the Japanese department is putting on a showing of _Shall We Dance?_ on campus tomorrow night. Wanna go?”

“Sure,” Ransom agreed before disappearing back into his notes.

“Cool.” With a wave of acknowledgement over his shoulder, Holster headed for his own room. Yeah, he had this post-college life thing under control.

***

“Good timing, right? To have that movie show up on the Duke events calendar right after my first class? And it was really good, too. If you haven’t seen the original Japanese version of _Shall We Dance?_ , I highly recommend it. I came home and watched the Richard Gere/J-Lo remake of it just to compare, and honestly, resetting it in the US rather than Japan takes away a lot of the cultural nuance and details that made the original so interesting. I mean, it’s not totally unexpected that an American businessman would be considered a little weird for deciding to take ballroom classes, but in the Japanese original, you really get the sense of how much of a _rebellion_ this was for him. He was expected to be dedicated to his job and nothing else. His family, maybe, if he had time. The idea he would have hobbies of his own was, like, revolutionary.

“And on a note Shitty would appreciate, it was really nice how it was set up to be a movie about the guy falling in love with his dance teacher at the expense of his wife, and then _didn’t_ go that route. Like, sure, he noticed her for her looks from the train at first, but he also noticed how sad she seemed, and that was the thing he really connected with, because he knew that feeling, and then he really got to know her, and all he and the other students wanted to do was help her build back up the confidence to return to competition, if that was what she really wanted. I dunno, man, I think there’s a lot I haven’t even unpacked from this movie yet, and probably stuff I’m missing since I haven’t actually ever been to Japan, but, like, it came out in the ’90s and still feels like it’s pushing boundaries current directors rarely touch, you know?

“But hey! Double feature! Because then I found Strictly Ballroom, and if you haven’t seen this gem of Australian cinema, you need to rectify that situation _immediately_. It shares some themes with _Shall We Dance?_ , in that the characters are basically using ballroom dancing to find themselves, but in this case the girl is the one learning and with the disapproving family, while the guy is the one who was supposed to be the next star from a ballroom dynasty, and he’s struggling to be himself, to define himself as something apart from his parents’ legacy. I wonder what Jack would think of it…”

**[quick editing jump, Holster now shown sitting slightly closer to the camera]**

“Anyway! There’s overly dramatic angst and completely ridiculous sequined outfits and a makeover montage and several triumphant dance sequences, all with Australian accents, and if that isn’t enough for you, I can also tell you that the female lead goes on to play the principal of the ballet school in the Australian TV show _Dance Academy_ , also on Netflix, and I’ve been entertaining myself with improbable theories about how this makes them actually the same character. Look, just watch it. You won’t regret it.

“Quick restaurant review: Since we were going to see the movie on campus, I looked around for somewhere close to eat, and we ended up at Dain’s Place on Ninth, because it was on a list of ‘best college campus bars,’ and it was totally dece. Good beer selection, really excellent tater tots. Got a similar vibe to Jerry’s, would recommend.

“Okay, I think that’s all I’ve got for this week! See you next Monday.”

***

**[Bitty in the kitchen with his hands on his hips, looking severe.]**

“Tater tots?! You went to a restaurant and ordered _tater tots_? Holster. Just for that, this week I’m assigning you a meal with _courses_ , because you clearly need to etiquette portion of those cotillion classes you never took as well as the dance lessons.

“First we’re going to look at how to set the table properly. Yes, there is actually a difference between the big and little spoons and forks that came in your silverware set…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Durham Arts Council doesn't currently offer a social dance class, but they do have two dance studios available, so they _could_ , which was good enough for me.
> 
> Also, despite Bitty's skepticism, the tater tots at Dain's are worth ordering in an actual restaurant and I feel Holster would appreciate them properly.


	4. A Hockey Shit Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally managed to carve out 36 Benadryl-free hours! Let's have a little Ransom POV now, shall we?

It was Ransom’s turn for bench presses on their circuit of the weight room, so of course that was when Holster started a conversation that needed actual responses, because that was  _always_ when Holster seemed to start conversations like that. Was it something about the act of spotting? Was he trying to keep himself focused on Ransom or distracted? (He hoped it wasn’t distracted; Ransom had no desire to die crushed under a pile of weights. Not that he actually had any concerns Holster would let that happen, but it was the principle of the thing.) Anyway, Ransom was really starting to think Holster had some sort of Pavlovian response to the bench press, where Ransom benching = start an actual conversation rather than just a one-sided rant about a TV show.

“So the Falconers’ opener is coming up soon.”

“Uh-huh,” Ransom managed on the exhale.

“And I think we should do something for it.”

“Like… what?” Was Holster even keeping track of his reps? Ransom was pretty sure that was six.

“Well, obviously going up to Providence is out of the question, but you guys did just finish your Molecules and Cells module, so you don’t have any big exams coming up, so I was thinking maybe we should host a thing at the house. Introduce your new peeps to hockey properly. We do already have the PowerPoints, after all. We’re in _heathen country_ , Ransom. That’s ten,” he concluded, and helped settle the bar firmly back in place.

Ransom sat up and pulled his towel off the bench to wipe his face as he started a mental calculation of how many people could fit in their living room and still see the TV adequately enough to track the puck. “Yeah, sure. I mean, it can’t be a proper kegster, but you know we can still throw a bitchin’ get-together. Our skills haven’t gotten that rusty yet.”

Holster scoffed. “As if.”

“Besides,” Ransom said as they changed places, “it’s not _true_ heathen country. They do have a team here.”

“If you want to call the Hurricanes that, sure.”

Ransom raised an eyebrow down at Holster as he settled and arranged his grip on the bar. “Better not let Bitty hear you trash-talking Skinner like that.”

“Did I say a single word about Skinny? No, I did not.” Holster raised the bar and Ransom spotted it into position.

“Besides, they do have a Stanley win,” Ransom pointed out.

“Yeah… but how long ago… was that?”

“I forget. We’ll have to make another PowerPoint just about them. For med student educational purposes.”

“Of course.”

***

Ransom sent out the evites during one of his mandated fifteen-minute study breaks. (Holster had gotten hold of his phone at some point and programmed in all sorts of alerts, and Ransom hadn’t managed to get rid of them all yet. It was easier to just take the break. So far, at least.) Their living room wasn’t super large, so he was keeping it ridiculously restrained by the standards of their parties, just Joe and Christine and Geoff-with-the-weird-spelling and Nicole, plus they could bring SOs or roommates or whoever if they wanted, and he really should have gotten a list of people Holster wanted to invite, but he solved that by bcc’ing him and then texted him to forward it if he wanted to. (Holster had people, right? They’d lived here for more than two months; he must have people.) The RSVPs were never the point anyway, especially since they weren’t going all out on the tub juice front or anything, it was just that evites seemed more… grown-up than doing it via Facebook.

Nicole leaned over from the next study carrel. “What’s with this ‘arrive an hour before puck drop for appetizers and an educational presentation’ line?”

“We take our hockey very seriously.”

She squinted at him and then back at her laptop. “Yeah, I can see that.”

He sighed. “You forgot I’m actually Canadian again, didn’t you?”

She at least had the grace to look embarrassed about it. “Um. Maybe.”

“Look, Holster—Adam and I were one of the most kickass defensive pairs in the NCAA, and I know that means jack shit down here, but think of it like, like…” He racked his brain for an equivalent basketball position, since that was the only sport anyone in this godforsaken state seemed to know anything about. “Like a power forward, I guess, although that’s not a very good direct comparison.”

She looked mildly more impressed than she had a second ago at that, so he called it a success.

“Anyway, the point is, it’s our buddy Jack’s home opener, so we have to support him, and we figured we’d make it a thing. The teams usually put on a bit of a show their first home game the year after winning the Cup.”

“You know someone in the NHL? You know someone who won the Stanley Cup?!”

Joe and Christine popped their heads over the edges of their carrels now.

Ransom blinked. “Yes? I said we were good. It was a Division I school, after all. And, I mean, Adam probably knows a few guys in at least the AHL, since he played in Juniors before college.”

“How did we not know this about you before?” asked Christine.

Joe settled for just looking at Ransom with very wide eyes.

“I dunno, dudes, you need better Facebook stalking skills? It’s not a secret.”

“Well, I’m in, for sure,” Christine said before she plopped back down in her chair.

“Same,” echoed Joe.

“’Swawesome,” Ransom responded absently, attention already drifting back into his notes. If he thought about it for too long, that crawly sensation of being basically a nobody in a sea of strangers’ faces would catch up with him again, and he didn’t like it. He wasn’t here for socializing anyway; he was here to for med school. Duke was a  _good_ med school. That was the whole point. He’d get used to it sooner or later. Throwing a party would help, he was pretty sure.

***

“Hey, man, thanks for inviting us,” Geoff said as Ransom ushered him and his girlfriend in through the house’s tiny foyer. He proffered a six-pack of some microbrew Ransom didn't recognize. “We were going to bring wine, but it seemed wrong for, you know, hockey.”

Ransom clapped him on the shoulder and beamed. “See? You’re learning already!” He waved towards the living room. “Sit wherever, most of the others are already here. I’m just gonna put these in the fridge.”

He passed Holster on his way into the kitchen with a friendly shoulder bump, since Holster had his own hands full of an enormous bowl of chips to set out on… one flat surface or another, they were still kind of winging this non-kegster hosting thing. The doorbell rang just then, and Holster called back over his shoulder, “I got it!”

Ransom stuck Geoff’s beer in the fridge and turned to check how the selection of other drinks on the breakfast bar was holding out just as Holster led a tallish blonde woman into the living room. Ransom registered a vague feeling of surprise when he noticed Holster’s hand in the middle of her back as he gestured generally at everyone else in the room.

“Everyone, this is Caroline. Caroline, these are Ransom’s med school people, who I probably know the names of half of…”

Nicole rolled her eyes at him and took over the introductions of the cohort. Ransom ran his eyes over the beverage selection one more time, but found everything still plentifully available, so he made his way back out of the kitchen.

“And this is Ransom! I mean, Justin,” Holster corrected, slinging his arm around Ransom’s shoulders as soon as he got within reach.

Caroline smiled at him with a touch more warmth than the polite smile she’d been wearing for everyone else and offered her hand. “It’s nice to finally meet you! I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Ransom said, trying frantically to place her. Someone from Holster’s Thursday thing? Had to be. Jesus, he was slipping.

Before he could figure out a way to ask some key data-gathering questions, though, Holster clapped his hands and boomed out, “Okay, let’s get this show on the road. Raise your hand if you have ever watched a hockey game outside it maybe being on one of the TVs in a sports bar. No one?” He shook his head. “That’s just sad, but it’s okay. We have PowerPoints!”

He made his way over to where his laptop was set up next to the TV and started messing with the settings on three separate remotes to get all the inputs feeding through to the screen correctly.

“Is he serious?” Caroline asked from where she was still standing beside Ransom, but just then their basic hockey primer slideshow came up, and she answered herself. “Oh. I see. Very serious. You two even have your own animated intro screen.” She shot Ransom an amused side glance. “I guess I’d better grab a seat.”

“Rans, get up here!” Holster beckoned imperiously. “So, welcome, everyone, to Hockey Shit with Ransom and Holster…”

***

“Wait. Wait, wait, wait,” Joe said about forty-five minutes later, as the pre-game coverage started. (Ransom had gotten Holster to promise not to throw popcorn or any other food at the TV if the commentators said something about Jack, which was a fairly major concession, but they were trying to ease these people into hockey spectating, after all.) “You didn’t say ‘your buddy Jack’ was Jack fucking Zimmermann. I would remember if you'd said _that_.”

“Oh, hey, even I’ve heard of _him_!” exclaimed Nicole. “That kiss made national news.”

Ransom saw Holster narrow his eyes and tensed in anticipation of what might follow. Fortunately, Holster went with a relatively restrained, “Well, you know what they say about Samwell: ‘One in four, maybe more.’” Only someone who knew him particularly well would hear the ice running under it.

“Oh, so he met his boyfriend in college with y'all?” Caroline asked smoothly, getting up to grab herself a soda.

Ransom looked at her in surprise. He recognized that method of mild conversational redirection, but he would have bet money he was the only person in the room who would have recognized that it was necessary.

“Yeah, he’s actually the captain of the team now,” Ransom hastened to answer. Holster absolutely _would_ go ballistic if someone said anything remotely disparaging about Bitty. “Voted in unanimously to replace the two of us,” he added, trading a smile with Holster.

“Wait, how were you both captains?” Geoff asked, and then Ransom was breathing easier, because it launched Holster into an explanation of hockey Cs and As, and the differences in captaincy rules between the NCAA and NHL. (It looked like Holster was hoping Chowder would get the C after Bitty’s graduation, if Ransom was reading the thoughts behind that particular tangent correctly. Ransom agreed.)

Caroline met his eyes from across the room and tipped her soda bottle at him in Holster-wrangling solidarity.

Ransom really wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

***

“This was great, guys!” Nicole said as she and Christine headed out the door.

“Yes, extremely educational,” Caroline said, deadpan, accepting her jacket from Holster.

Before Holster could snark something back at her, he was distracted by Joe saying, “I still don’t think I understand icing.”

Ransom was grinning at Joe’s innocent naïveté in daring to say something like that if he wanted to make it home anytime soon when Caroline lightly touched his arm. He looked down at her questioningly.

“Thanks for inviting me. I know this was mostly for your friends.”

He felt his eyebrows rise. “No, no, it was all Holster’s idea, actually. I know he’s glad you came.”

Her eyes flicked over to Holster, now gesticulating emphatically, and then back to Ransom. “Me, too.” She gave him one last smile and a wave over her shoulder as she left.

Geoff and his girlfriend had finally made their way past Holster and Joe’s discussion and were wise enough to make their escape while they could. As Ransom shut the door behind them, he heard her say, “But I thought you said Justin and Adam were—” before Geoff shushed her.

“Look, can you send me a slideshow about this?” Joe asked behind him, and Ransom grinned. “I think it’s gonna take me a few more games before I really get it.”

Ransom turned to catch Holster’s look of pride. He even ran a knuckle under his glasses to catch a fake tear. “You hear that, Rans? A few more games. We’ve converted another one!”

Ransom held his hand out for a fist bump. “Did you really doubt the power of our presentation skills?”

Holster solemnly bumped him back. “Never.”

Joe rolled his eyes at both of them. “Whatever. I’m leaving.”

“Awww, we’re just chirpin’, bro,” Holster called after him.

Joe gave him a good-nature middle finger over the shoulder as he made his way out.

Holster slung an arm around Ransom’s shoulders and turned them to survey the living room. “Eh, this is nothing compared to a kegster clean-up. C’mon, let’s go make a Falcs’ fan reaction video! It can be my vlog for Bitty this week.”

***

Bitty’s response: “Boys! I didn’t know you were going to host a viewing party! I would have sent you a care package with at least some cookies. Lord.

“Well, just to make sure you’re not so unprepared next time, here are two quick recipes you can use for next time: a nice artichoke dip and chocolate-chocolate chip cookies. I’d tell you to do sugar cookies decorated with hockey motifs, but, well, Lardo warned me that y’all’s decorating skills leave something to be desired…”

 


	5. Shagging (No, Not Like That)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... this year's allergy season was great, huh? Let's not talk about it anymore. Moving on!
> 
> I know there's a lot of Caroline in this chapter and not a huge amount of Ransom, but bear with me. In recompense, I have Holster review one of my favorite movies of all time and give you an actual Southern recipe.

**[Holster in his customary desk chair, whiteboard and increasingly full bookcase visible behind him]**

“Okay, followers, time for a vocabulary lesson, because this is clearly going to be in important point for the next couple weeks at least. I’m pretty sure Bitty knows this, but just for clarity: the Carolina shag is the name of a style of dance, and it has nothing to do with Austin Powers…”

***

“Welcome back, everyone. As you know, we finished up the ballroom portion of this class, so now we’ll be moving on to swing.” Caroline paused to allow all the excited murmurs to die down. Holster looked at the outfit she’d picked to teach this week’s class, because he’d figured out pretty quickly that he could usually get some clues about what kind of dancing they’d be doing just from her clothing. After several weeks of graceful, flowy dresses, tonight she was wearing, of all things, capris, a sweater set, and deck shoes. What the heck did that mean? Should he be scared? At least he felt slightly less underdressed than normal.

“We’re actually going to transition into swing with a specific, though less well known, type that originated along the Carolina coast: the Carolina shag.”

Holster felt his mouth open before he’d even consciously thought of the required movie quote; Caroline was already raising a hand to stop… well, everyone, it looked like, although she did glare at him specifically for just a second.

“ _No_ , it does not have anything to do with the British slang term,” she said, very emphatically. “I like it as a transition from ballroom into the more widely known types of swing because it remains focused on footwork and graceful upper body positioning while getting you used to swing timing. Now! Let’s look at the basic footwork. Both partners will be doing the same footwork, just mirroring one another. You stand about an arm’s length away and hold hands on just the one side, to allow for turning, but we’ll get to all that in a bit. Individual practice first. The counts are one-and-two, three-and-four, five, six…”

As it turned out, Holster really liked shagging. (And it only took him about half an hour into the class to stop snickering inside his own head every time he heard or thought the word. Mostly.) He had to think about the footwork a little more at first, but then he settled into it, and the music was more fun, his mother’s extensive efforts towards his classical music education notwithstanding.

By the end of class, he was turning Caroline like a pro—well, semi-pro; very competent amateur, for sure—and they could get through an entire song without stopping. And there had been laughing! All the ballroom dances had seemed to encourage seriousness once people felt like they’d learned the steps, everyone clearly envisioning themselves in a PBS adaptation as they whirled around the room in a stately fashion, (though Holster had his doubts about how serious people at balls back in the day really were; like, why would anyone go if you had to be so dour all the time? Weren’t they meant to be essentially hook-up parties? Had Shitty ever taken a class on this? He should ask…), but shagging to beach music kept everyone relaxed the whole time. It was probably his favorite class of the whole thing so far.

“So,” Caroline said as they did their now customary final sweep of the room for lost belongings before locking the door, “how do you feel about competitions?”

Holster looked back at her over his shoulder. “Like, in general? I am in favor. I played hockey rather seriously, you know.” He carefully did not bring up Haus board game tournaments. Apparently normal people didn’t find that level of competitiveness desirable, for some reason.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, I do seem to recall that. I meant dance competitions. Because shag is competitive, and my last partner had to quit at the end of last season, and I was wondering if you’d want to give it a shot.”

He straightened up and just stood there, blinking at her in confusion. “You do realize you just taught me how to shag _today_ , right?”

She smiled. “I know. But there are different levels of competition, and I think we work well together. Plus I get bored if I have to sit out a season. And you’re good advertising if I can tell people I’ve taught you all this in such a short amount of time.”

“Oh, well, if I’ll be good _advertising_ , why didn’t you say so?”

“Well, you said you were an econ major, I was just trying to speak your language,” she said with a pat on his shoulder.

He snorted, but he was already starting to consider it. Did he want to get back into doing a competitive… did this count as a sport? He wasn’t sure, but the question remained: He’d just gotten out of doing one seriously competitive hobby-turned-almost-job. Should he really be thinking about doing that with the first non-hockey hobby he’d ever really gotten to try?

“Can I think about it?”

“Sure. Like you said, you only just learned how to shag tonight! On a semi-related note, what are you and Justin doing tomorrow night?”

“Nothing specific, why?”

“Because I’m taking you to dinner to enjoy true local food, and then I have a movie for you to watch.”

Holster stared at her for a moment. “Witchcraft,” he whispered.

She raised her eyebrows knowingly, and then said, “Or maybe your interests are not that mysterious.”

A horrifying thought occurred to him. “Oh my god, did you find my vlog channel?”

She grinned widely. “You know, I _did_. And your friend Eric is cute as a button, and you can tell him I said that. I’m so glad he’s looking out for your ability to feed yourself post-college.”

“I already knew how to cook!” Holster protested. _Sort of_ , he added mentally. He’d certainly gotten a lot better while working from home these last couple of months, though, he couldn’t deny it, mostly through a combination of sheer amount of free time plus conversations with Bitty and his mom. Still. His honor did not deserve to be impugned in such a fashion!

She patted his arm in what was definitely a condescending manner, not to mention entirely too Bitty-like for his comfort as he mentally reevaluated all the other times he had received such an arm pat. “I’m sure you did. But I’m pretty sure you don’t know how to make real barbecue, given where you’re from.”

He narrowed his eyes. “And what constitutes ‘real’ barbecue?”

“Eastern North Carolina pulled pork barbecue with a vinegar sauce,” she said, definitively.

“Well, I’m Jewish, so…”

Her cheeks heated in embarrassment. “Well, shit, I’m sorry! They have chicken, too, though, if you still want to experience a real Durham tradition.”

“No, it’s cool, I don’t actually keep kosher. I spent so long on roadies with limited food options, and I lived with a host family when I was playing in Iowa and it didn’t seem worth it to try to keep strict, you know?” _Don’t make waves_ had basically been his motto through all of Juniors. “I just meant that’s definitely why I don’t know how to make ‘real barbecue.’ Regardless of how Yankee my origins may be.”

Caroline looked like she was still processing all of that, but she nodded. “So you do want to check out Bullock’s?”

“Sure, I’m up for it.”

“Great! What time works best for y’all?”

“Well, Rans is usually done with stuff on Fridays by five, so any normal dinner time should work.”

“How ’bout I meet you at your place around six so I can give you directions over to the restaurant, and then we can come back to yours for the movie?”

“Sounds good.”

***

**AB:** How did you decide you wanted to do hockey after you quit skating?

**EB:** I missed the ice.

**AB:** No, I mean, how did you decide you wanted to do a competitive thing again?

**EB:** I don’t think that was really an option in my family.

**EB:** I think Coach’s version of ‘if a tree falls in the forest’ is ‘if you can’t earn a trophy, does it really count as exercise?’

**EB:** Even Mama was a cheerleader, and cheer competitions are no joke.

**EB:** Why?

**AB:** Caroline asked if I wanted to do competitive shag.

**EB:** !!! Y’all are doing shag now? How fun!

**AB:** Yeah.

**EB:** Why wouldn’t you want to?

**AB:** I just don’t know. Shouldn’t I take this chance to do something different? Do I always have to compete? This was just supposed to be for fun.

**EB:** Hold on, gotta take a pie out of the oven.

**EB:** Ok, back. Why are you worried about this? You were never one of those poor losers or anything.

**AB:** I guess… It just feels like things are supposed to be different after college.

**EB:** Just because you decided not to go the NHL route doesn’t mean you have to stop being yourself, Adam.

**EB:** I mean, I sure as shit hope that’s not the way the world works.

**EB:** Wouldn’t that just be goddamn depressing.

**AB:** Oh shut up. You know what I mean.

**EB:** I do, but you’re being a drama queen about it.

**AB:** So is this a for somebody pie or an avoidance pie?

**EB:** Don’t you talk to me about avoidance, sir.

***

Caroline arrived promptly at six. Holster greeted her at the door with, “Ransom’s not done with his shower yet, but he should be out soon,” which, given her raised eyebrows, was maybe more information than she needed, but whatever. His conversation with Bitty had left him feeling both closer to life in the Haus and simultaneously like he’s lost all his footing in what post-college life he’d managed to build.

Fortunately Ransom came out of his room then doing up the last button his shirt and started looking for his shoes. Holster slid them into his view with the side of his own foot, and Ransom shot him a smile.

“Thanks, bro.” He transferred his smile to Caroline. “Hey, Caroline. Thanks for offering to take us out.”

“My pleasure,” she assured him. “Besides, I have an ulterior motive.”

Ransom gave her a quick puzzled frown before he got distracted patting all his pockets.

“You’ll see after dinner,” she said.

Holster spotted Ransom’s wallet on the entryway table and tossed it to him, wondering all the while exactly what this movie was that Caroline had promised to show him, that it could now constitute an ulterior motive.

Dinner sufficiently distracted him from pondering it for too long. The walls of the entry area of the rather unassuming brick building were covered from the level of the host station to the ceiling with pictures, most of which appeared to be of people of at least some recognizability.

“Their wall of fame,” Caroline said from beside him. “Everyone remotely famous who's eaten here. They claim to be the longest continually running restaurant in Durham now, since 1952.”

Holster squinted down at her. “Did you just know that off the top of your head? Just how often do you eat here?”

She shoved his shoulder. “Shut up. I looked it up before we came. I’m trying to be a good local guide.”

Once they were seated, Caroline ordered iced tea for them all. “Trust me. You can make whatever judgment you want about sweet tea after this, I just have to know you’ve had it made properly before I’ll be willing to hear any complaints.”

The waitress nodded in agreement and left them to study the menus.

“As long as you have no dietary restrictions saying you can’t, I recommend you try one of the chopped pork barbecue plates, because that’s kind of the point of coming here. And here,” she pointed at one of the first pages of the menu, “are all the sides.”

“Oh, okra!” Ransom said.

Holster made a face.

Caroline caught it. “You have to have it made by someone who knows how to cook it right,” she insisted, and Ransom nodded in agreement.

Then Holster saw something that had him elbowing Ransom in the side. “Since when is mac and cheese a vegetable?”

Caroline laughed. “It’s kind of a tradition in barbecue restaurants around here that anything that isn’t meat is considered an honorary vegetable.”

Holster thought maybe the South had some things to recommend it after all.

***

An hour and a half later, groaningly full, they returned to the house and collapsed on the couch.

Caroline grinned down at them. “Have I converted you?”

“Why did no one tell me about hush puppies before this?” Holster moaned.

“Probably shouldn’t have asked them to bring us a new basket,” Ransom sighed from beside him. “Twice.”

“Worth it,” Holster said, and held the back of his fist next to Ransom’s for a low-effort bump of agreement, which he promptly received.

“Excellent,” Caroline said, then opened her purse to extract a DVD.

She handed it to Holster and he was surprised to find it was in a clear plastic jewel case, “Shag” sharpied across an otherwise unadorned disc.

“The real version can only be found on VHS,” she explained. “When they did the official DVD conversion, they couldn’t get the rights to all the same songs, for some reason, so they changed the music, and that is _pure_ _sacrilege_.”

Holster found himself speechless with admiration at such an impassioned movie rant from someone who wasn’t him.

Ransom covered his face with his hands. “Oh no, there’s two of them now!”

If Holster kicked him in the ankle when he got up to put the DVD in, it was entirely by accident.

***

“Bitty, this movie! Have you ever seen it? You should see it. Phoebe Cates, Bridget Fonda, Annabeth Gish, who is probably less instantly recognizable as a name you would know, but is the absolute stand-out of this movie...

“Okay, so, see, it’s 1963 and there’s this group of four high school girl friends who are stealing their one friend, Carson, the one played by Phoebe Cates, away for the weekend because she’s supposed to be getting married to this total square of a rich guy while the rest of them go off to college. The redheaded one, Luann, is a senator’s daughter and she assures Carson’s parents that they’re going on a tour of historic homes in Charleston or wherever, but really they're going to stay in her parents’ vacation house in Myrtle Beach, which is, like, apparently really scandalous for them to do. They pick up their other friends, Melaina, the preacher’s daughter, who is exactly like what you would expect for a preacher’s daughter played by Bridget Fonda, and Pudge, the overlooked one, and off they go. And then, of course, shenanigans ensue. I won’t get into too many spoilers about the details here, just know that they of course meet some boys, Buzz (the cocky one) and Chip (his earnest sidekick.)

“Here’s the thing. I think it’s really easy to read this movie on first viewing as Carson’s journey, and looking at the official movie poster, I think that’s how they ended up marketing it. Girl is supposed to get married; girl meets intriguing bad boy; girl finally learns something about herself and questions whether she should follow through with her parents’ expectations for her. A good, solid story arc. Each of the girls gets her own arc, really.

“But the title of the movie is _Shag_ , after all, and that makes very little sense if you’re watching it as Carson’s movie, because she doesn’t even really dance. Pudge, though, loves shagging, and it’s her determination to compete in the big shag contest that drives the plot, such as it is, in the latter half of the movie. I argue that the movie is really more about her journey from the formerly pudgy, overlooked friend, the perpetual trusty sidekick to the more popular girls, to becoming her own person. She doesn’t really have anyone else’s expectations about her future to overcome like the other girls do, largely because nobody has any for her, not even herself. Everyone’s vision of her is still stuck several years in the past, and now she’s finally tired of it. Maybe it’s because she sees too much of herself in Chip, who’s always jumping to Buzz’s orders, and she’s the only one not swayed by Buzz’s glamor. Or maybe it’s because of the conversation she has with Chip about his plans for a future in the military, when it becomes clear that even though others may see him as just a sidekick, he does actually have a life planned for himself. Or maybe it’s just that she wants to compete in that shag contest more than she’s wanted to do anything for herself before, and that gives her enough of a goal to break free of her assigned role in their friend group. But whatever the reason, probably all of these combined, I’m sure, the true, triumphant climax of the movie is hers. And I think she deserves it.

“Anyway, the movie did work, and I told Caroline (who, yes, does share her name with the real heroine of the movie) that I would be her partner for the upcoming shag competition season. I think they have a season? I don’t know how any of this works. At this point, I’m just hoping not to embarrass her.

“Moving on to the food, though, I have to admit, Bitty, I think Caroline has converted me to Eastern North Carolina barbecue with the vinegar sauce. We ate _so much_ and I’m still thinking about it. I wonder if I should get a smoker… I mean, I’d never be able to admit to my grandmother what I was using it for, but maybe I could tell her it was just for brisket…”

***

**[Bitty: *looks outraged, holds up a hand, reenacts the Jamie Lee Curtis iced tea meme*]**

“Clearly I am going to have to call in some reinforcement for these _wrong_ barbecue opinions, my god.”

**[pulls out his phone, puts it on speaker]**

“Hello?”

“Hey, Coach!” **[Bitty’s voice gets markedly more Southern]**

“Well, hey, Junior. Did you… did you want to talk to your mama? I can go find her if you want, she’s probably in the kitchen.”

“No, Daddy, I actually called to talk to you. It’s for that vlog I was telling you about, with my friend Adam.”

“Well, now, you know I don’t know much about baking.”

“No, no, this is about barbecue.”

“Oh, well, sure, what d’you need to know?”

“Holster’s got it into his fool head that that North Carolina vinegar sauce is best.”

“Well, now, I ain’t got nothing against their style of barbecue, they do know how to smoke a mighty fine pig, but I gotta admit, I prefer our style of sauces down here. Seems a bit more hospitable to me to offer a few different kinds of sauces, so people can choose their own. A little bit of a tomato base does go a long way towards taking out some of that hard vinegar bite.”

“ _Thank you_. See, Holster? You don’t get a more expert opinion than that.”

**[quick editing cut]**

“Now that we’ve got that barbecue controversy all cleared up, I’m gonna show you how to make banana pudding, the most traditional barbecue dessert, and possibly the easiest. Since I don’t hold with meringue topping on banana pudding, all you’re going to need are some not-quite-brown bananas, a box of Nilla wafers, and some vanilla pudding. The kind you have to cook on the stove, mind you, not the no-cook instant kind. Down where you are, you’ll probably be able to find the Nilla wafers right next to the bananas in the grocery store, and this is why, in case you’d been wondering.

“Start by filling your serving bowl with alternating layers of cookies and banana slices. There’s no wrong way to do it; it doesn't even matter which layer ends up on top, just do whatever you want. Then make the pudding, pour it slowly over the top, and let it settle down in all the nooks and crannies. Then cover it with plastic wrap, making sure the plastic is pushed down to touch the top of the pudding so you don’t get a skin, and put it in the fridge to set. You can top it with whipped cream to serve, if you want, but it’s not really necessary, in my opinion, and you know how I like sweet things…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't come at me about Holster saying he doesn't keep kosher in this chapter! I swear this is not just some passing reference to his Judaism that I then negated in order to have him eat barbecue; I'm actually working off extensive notes and headcanons developed after interviewing my friend who is intimately familiar with 1) Iowa hockey culture and 2) being a Jewish transplant in both Iowa and North Carolina. There will be more.
> 
> Also, many thanks to my dad and my brother for consultation on comparative regional barbecue opinions.


	6. Feeling Aimless

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of alternating POV this time, even though the chapter ended up being a little shorter than normal.

“Hey, Holtzy, can I use the car this week?” Ransom asked, wandering into the living room with what appeared to be a conference schedule in hand.

“Sure, man. What do you need it for?”

“There’s this biomedical conference we’re supposed to go to over at State.”

Holster looked over at the location information at the top of the schedule and pulled up a map of NC State. “Oh, bro, the parking there is going to suck hardcore. Text your people and get together a carpool and I’ll just drop you all.”

Ransom blinked at him for a minute and then gave him one of those cover model smiles that had gotten him into the Swallow’s 50 Most Beautiful so many times. “You’d do that? It won’t mess you up?”

“Nah, man, I can do my stuff from anywhere.”

The rest of Ransom’s cohort were all super grateful as well, and Holster was grinning to himself about being a real carpool mom now as he settled in at Cup A Joe, the coffee shop he’d found down at the far end of Hillsborough Street, just beyond the edge the campus area. It had weird mismatched seats, some like the ones from school with the desks attached, and the brick walls were hung with art for sale by local artists. He took some pictures and texted them to Lardo.

**AB:** Seems like your kind of place!

He got back a selfie of Lardo looking deadpan at the camera, hair sticking up in weird directions and smeared with at least four colors of paint.

**AB:** Pieces for your next show are going well, I see.

**LD:** Piss off, Birkholtz.

**AB:** Miss you, too, babe!

**LD:** <3

His smile faded a bit when as he returned his phone to his pocket, though. It was hours before he needed to go pick the group up from the conference, and while he had a list of places to go see in Raleigh as long as he was over here, the truth was, he was lonely. It wasn’t like he needed to be around people all the time or anything, but he’d been on teams for so long, now that he had all the solitude he could want, he didn’t know what to do with it.

He sighed, opened his laptop, and got to work killing the time until lunch with making his trades for the day and starting to write up his thoughts for the media review for this week’s vlog. As he finished his coffee, something called a Voltaire that had been the daily special and he was now realizing had _quite_ a lot of espresso under the hot chocolate, he added: _Look up Voltaire. Did he really drink these things every day? Did he really drink multiple of them a day? How did he survive?_

To counteract all the caffeine, he navigated his way slowly back down to the other end of Hillsborough, through all the roundabouts the other drivers all still seemed annoyingly hesitant to use, past the bell tower and various brick buildings he’d mentally marked as “not where Ransom is,” until he came out the other side and spotted the Char-Grill, which Caroline had said was so old-school her grandparents had taken her mother there to eat as a kid. He enjoyed the retro signage as he waited for his order, but since the only seating available was two picnic tables under the outdoor overhang to the side, he took his burger and fries and shake to the Raleigh Rose Garden.

He was the only one there. He sat alone in the mid-autumn weather, under oaks that had lost only about half their leaves yet, and looked out at the few very late-blooming roses, wondering what the place looked like in the spring. He took some pictures and sent them to Bitty this time.

**EB:** What are all those stairs over behind the gazebo?

**AB:** An amphitheater. For the Raleigh Little Theater.

**EB:** Ooooh! What kinds of things do they put on?

Holster obligingly looked up the season’s offerings.

**AB:** Lots of musicals, it looks like.

(That wasn't completely true, but he’d been distracted by the mention of Avenue Q coming up in the spring.)

**EB:** Oh fun! You should go!

**AB:** We’ll see if Ransom has time.

**EB:** Oops, class is starting, gotta go!

**AB:** Later, Bitty.

***

The conference had been interesting, Ransom supposed. He’d definitely taken a lot of notes. He knew his mom would have lots of questions about what promising new technologies had been presented, and if any of them seemed like things he’d like to pursue. Not that his parents were necessarily pushing him toward biomedical engineering in particular, but “it never hurts to stay abreast of current trends and the latest research, Justin.”

He’d started gripping his conference folder a little too hard, a thing he only noticed when he spotted Holster waiting for them in the parking lot and he felt everything in him relax just a bit. “Hey!” he said, leaning into Holster’s one-armed hug as he climbed into the passenger seat.

“Hey,” Holster said. Ransom thought he looked tired. He opened his mouth to ask if everything was okay, but then everyone else got in the back and Holster was turning to smile at them and there was no time.

“So where should we eat dinner?” he asked, as if he didn’t already have a definite opinion, but Ransom guessed he was trying to be polite.

“Oh, I know! Does anyone else feel like wings?” Joe asked, not noticing Ransom’s widening eyes and increasingly frantic hand gestures until it was too late.

Ransom buried his face in his hands. “Dude, you don’t know what you’ve done,” he moaned as Holster took a deep breath before launching into his well-honed fifteen-minute soliloquy on the subject of what _true_ Buffalo wings are, dammit, you _heathens_ from other parts of the country don’t know what you’re talking about.

It wasn’t that Ransom didn’t agree with him—he had, in fact, been thoroughly schooled in the world of true wings by Holster over several years of visiting Buffalo in the summers—but he had already been hungry before Joe got Holster started on this detour. He sighed and started fiddling with the GPS, trying to see what was nearby while restraining himself from mouthing the speech along with Holster over his shoulder.

Christine caught his eye and smiled. “Look,” she said, valiantly trying to cut the rant short. “Why don’t we compromise and go to Beasley’s Chicken + Honey?” Wonder of wonders, _it actually worked_.

“Oh, yeah, that’s on my list! Let’s go!” Holster exclaimed, finally turning the key.

Ransom began feel better about his chances of getting to eat before he starved to death

The rest of the evening was good. The food was excellent, and Holster quizzed the waiter about all of the chef’s restaurants in the area (apparently she had a bunch?) and made notes in his phone of other places to try, and Ransom felt himself relax even more, the last of the tension from the conference melting out of his shoulders.

***

Holster had been feeling kind of tired before he arrived, but he burst out laughing when he walked into that week’s dance class and found Caroline had gone all out with an honest-to-god poodle skirt and saddle shoes. He was pretty sure he was in love. In a way that had nothing to do with wanting to hit on her, but still.

“Back to making me feel underdressed, I see,” he said, gesturing at his usual jeans and a t-shirt (Samwell Hockey this time.)

She waved dismissively. “It doesn’t matter. What’s important when learning new things is that you be in something you’re comfortable moving in. I’m hardly going to expect you to have period attire on hand for a beginner lesson. I went more ’50s than ’40s this time, so even I’m not being totally correct, but this group seems more borderline rockabilly anyway.”

Her prediction proved correct when the tattooed crew showed up dressed to the nines and practically buzzing with excitement. Holster forgot all about feeling tired as he had to concentrate for the rest of class, determined not to do something stupid like drop Caroline, although lifts turned out to be not nearly as big a part of the class as he’d expected. (“Next week,” she assured them.)

They finished cleanup quickly after the chattering hordes left and sat down to drink some water before heading home. Caroline leaned over to bump into his shoulder gently. “What’s up with you? You’re being all quiet.”

“You’re a freelancer, right?”

She hummed in agreement.

“What do you do to fill up time?”

“Well, for one thing, this isn’t my only job. Shockingly, the call for social dance teachers isn’t as high as you might expect. Most of my daytime hours get filled by massage clients. But I also read a lot, and make clothes, and practice for competitions.” She shrugged. “I found, after a while, that if you acquire enough hobbies, filling the hours really isn’t a problem. I can waste time like a champ.”

Holster sighed, twisting the cap on his water bottle back and forth. “I guess I’m just not used to having so much free time. My life has literally never been this unscheduled.”

“Oh, you’re going to regret telling me that! I’ll email you a practice schedule when I get home. I’ll have you shagging in your sleep in no time.”

“You know that still sounds dirty, right?”

She gave him the finger, and he went home laughing, feeling lighter at the prospect of having a practice schedule again, even if it was for something completely unrelated to hockey for the first time.

***

**[Holster sits back in his chair and gives the camera a half-hearted wave]**

“Hey, Bitty. Kind of a weird week here this week. I took Ransom and his med school peeps over to Raleigh for a conference and hung around while they were doing their thing. Raleigh has an interestingly different vibe. The university there is way bigger, for one thing, and there’s way more of a business district built up around it. Duke really just has Ninth Street, which is more like Samwell.

“Anyway, I found a cool coffee shop, and lunch was good, plus I finally got to go to one of Ashley Christensen’s restaurants for dinner, which you know have been on my list ever since we got here…”

**[*insert of a short slideshow of pictures as Holster gives a more detailed review of the food*]**

“Anyway, for this week’s movies, I did kind of a weird double feature of _Reality Bites_ and _The Devil Wears Prada_ , I guess because I was in the mood for things about characters who feel kind of aimless after college. Not that those main characters are exactly aimless—they all have real goals and dreams, they’re just having a hard time achieving them—but I still think they capture the feeling of not knowing what to do with life after college pretty well.”

**[Holster sighs.]**

“I knew I wasn’t going pro when I left Juniors for Samwell. Like, I knew it. I’m not actually sure I would have signed a contract if a team had tried to scout me. I’ve been doing it since I was five, and I love it, I always will, but Juniors showed me I didn’t really want it to be my career. It’s just so… **[He waves a hand.]** I don’t know. It wasn’t for me. So I went to Samwell, and it was great, because it was hockey _and_ school, and I guess I just went back to ignoring the fact I had no idea what I was going to do later?

“But now here I am, and I guess this is sort of the opposite of Juniors. Instead of having only hockey, I have only the other stuff. Huh. That’s kind of an interesting thought. I’m sure it feels even weirder right now because Ransom’s still in school but I’m not.”

**[Holster straightens in his chair.]**

“Not to worry, though! Caroline says she’s going to whip me into shagging shape, so I’m sure I’ll have more to talk about with that soon.”

***

**[Bitty appears, looking mildly concerned.]**

“Hey, hon. Sounds like you’re in need of some low-effort comfort food, so we’re gonna do mac and cheese and steamed vegetables this week. I know the mac and cheese will seem like it takes a lot more effort than what you get out of a box, but trust me, it’ll be way better, and you’ll have leftovers for days. For the vegetables, just get one of those packages of frozen that steam themselves in the microwave. I did a paper on convenience foods a while ago, and they’ve shown that frozen vegetables aren’t really any less nutritious than fresh, given that they’re usually flash frozen as soon as possible after picking, as opposed to being transported long distances, so as much as I love a farmer’s market, I ain’t got nothing against keeping frozen vegetables on hand…”


	7. Home for the Holidays?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly shorter chapter than expected, but this is where it wanted to break. Hopefully the next one will go up faster!

Holster sighed and switched off his webcam. Again. He’d never had so much trouble starting a vlog recording, not since he and Bitty started this project. He looked down at his notes, hoping inspiration would strike (the same way he had the last ten times he’d looked them over), but all he could think to talk about was how Revolution had the most pretentious art, and how Mateo’s had lost his and Caroline’s reservations, which she’d laughed off and but he continued to find intensely annoying, and how he knew for a fact Cocoa Cinnamon was taking credit for renovations to the old gas station that the previous tenant had done before they convinced the landlord to yank the rent out from under her and give it to them instead. Bitty always managed to be so positive in his half of the vlogs, though, and Holster didn’t want to be That Guy who talked smack about local businesses when he wasn’t even from here. As much as Holster loved a good bitch session, even he knew it wasn’t really the image he wanted to present on their channel. The internet was forever, after all, and anything Holster said could reflect back on Bitty and Jack by extension.

He opened Skype and called Bitty instead.

Bitty greeted him from his bedroom instead of the kitchen, for once. “Hey, Holster, what’s up?”

“I can’t vlog this week. How do you always stay so positive?”

“How do I always…?” Bitty spluttered and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh my lord, sometimes I forget I’m dealing with you hockey boys. Sometimes you just gotta smear a little Vaseline on your teeth and put some Preparation H under your eyes and skate out on the ice and _smile_ , honey.”

Holster could see the vaguely revolted and confused face he made in the little preview window down in the corner of his screen.

Bitty huffed at him. “I mean that metaphorically for you, you oaf. But honestly, I wish sometimes hockey had some sort of style points system, so you’d all have some sort of understanding of what it’s like to actually be held accountable for your overall demeanor for more than the length of a hypothetical locker room interview!”

Holster blinked. “Uh… you okay there, bud?”

Bitty rubbed his forehead. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just… been a long week, and there are all these things I’m supposed to be getting done for my classes before Thanksgiving break, and all I want to think about is which pies I’m gonna make for the boys this year, you know?” He sighed. “I guess I thought I’d just be enjoying my last year of college more, but instead it’s all this responsibility.” He straightened up suddenly, looking contrite. “Not that I don’t love being captain! I’m still real flattered y’all voted for me last year! I just… there’s so much to do.”

Holster gave Bitty a half-smile. “Want me to make you one of Rans’s time management spreadsheets?”

“No! Well, yes. Maybe. You know I never follow things like that.” He rested his head on one hand. “Maybe you’re right, though, maybe the vlog should go on vacation for the holidays.”

That hadn’t been what Holster had been suggesting, or at least not what he thought he was suggesting, but it made sense, he supposed. He also realized with a start that was the second time Bitty had mentioned Thanksgiving as an event on the near horizon.

“Wait, when is Thanksgiving again?”

“Adam Birkholtz! What kind of an American do you call yourself?! It’s next week!”

***

“Welcome to our last class, everyone!” Caroline announced cheerily. “Hopefully you’ll have an opportunity to put some of your new knowledge to use during the holidays, and if not, well, maybe it’s time to start some new traditions.”

It honestly hadn’t occurred to Holster that the class’s end date coincided with people getting busy with the holidays and their attendant obligations, but it certainly made sense. Still, he felt a sinking sensation in his chest at the idea of his one out-of-the-house obligation coming to an end.

It must have translated more into what he was doing than he thought, because Caroline asked him if he was okay once they’d finished demonstrating and were just going through the example steps for the night with everyone else.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, the holidays just snuck up on me, I guess.”

Caroline frowned. “Oh, shit, are you going to be stuck here? I assumed you’d be going home for the long weekend. I’d invite you home with me, but my cousin just got married and is bringing her new husband and step-kids and it’s gonna be nuts. We don’t even normally make Thanksgiving a huge thing in our family, but this year everyone decided to converge, I’m assuming for gossip purposes, and I’m going to be amazed if I even end up in a real bed.”

Holster managed to laugh a little at that. “No, no, it’s fine. This year is just a weird transition, you know? Plus, I’d forgotten this was the last class.”

“Oh, well, that’s no problem! We have a competition coming up at the beginning of December.”

“We do?” Holster asked in surprise.

“Yup. I don’t think I put it on the schedule I sent you because I wasn’t sure you’d be ready, but now I think you’ll just be more motivated.” She patted him on the shoulder before she turned away in a spin and then moved off to correct one of the other students, leaving Holster behind to figure out his muddle of emotions on his own.

***

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hi, sweetie! How’s everything going down there?”

“Um. It’s fine. I, uh, I had a question.” He could hear his mom doing stuff in the background, which was her usual state during phone calls.

“Shoot.”

“Was I supposed to come home for Thanksgiving this year?”

The background noises on the other end of the line stopped. “I… Huh. I hadn’t thought about it, to tell you the truth. I’m so sorry, baby.” There was silence for a moment. “I guess this really is the first year you don’t have to worry about getting ready for a game, huh?” she said softly.

Holster swallowed. Of course his mom would cut to the heart of the matter right away. “Yeah.”

“Do you want to come up? I could get your father to see about getting you a ticket…”

“No, Mom, it’s fine. I’m sure last-minute ticket prices are insane. Besides, it’s not like Rans is going anywhere. We’ll just stay here and have a low-key holiday of our own.”

“If you’re sure. We’ll try to remember for next year, yeah?”

“Yeah, Mom. Thanks.”

“I love you, baby.”

“I love you, too.”

He hung up the phone and just felt… lost. He wasn’t sure why it was hitting him so hard all of a sudden. It wasn’t even like he’d ever really cared about Thanksgiving, coming as it did in the middle of everything. Sure, he’d always liked all the food, but it wasn’t like he’d ever had the time or energy to do more than show up where he was told to be and eat it.

His eyes caught on the neon plastic of his disc golf discs, and he figured if he had to feel all weird and uncertain and vaguely restless, he could at least do it while moving, and he bet the disc golf area between East and West Campus would be largely deserted, even though, in his opinion, it was still barely even cool out.

He was right, and it might have been pleasant except his aim was all off, so he spent more time rummaging through the leaves for his discs than actually throwing them. He found his last disc and crossed the street to the sidewalk. As he started trudging up the hill towards Broad Street, he looked up to check that no one was turning at a small cross street and froze. The little street was called Faber and the only thing it led to was the Jewish student center, and Holster didn’t really believe in signs, but maybe… maybe he did after all.

His feet carried him through the door before he even knew he’d decided to go in. “Hi,” he said to the woman at the desk. “Um. I’m not actually a student here, but my roommate is. Do you maybe have some information I could get about local synagogues?”

“Of course!”

He left with the list in his pocket, feeling like he’d taken a step toward… something. Reclaiming his own life again, maybe? Or for the first time? Not that he’d actually done anything yet, but still.

***

“Hey, Rans?”

“Hmm?”

“Are we planning anything for Thanksgiving?”

“That was last month.”

Which was, honestly, the answer Holster had been expecting. “ _American_ Thanksgiving.”

“Oh. I mean, I have off from class and was planning to do some extra studying with this new flashcard review program I found, but if you want to do something, we probably can. What did you have in mind?”

Holster stifled a sigh. “No, bro, it’s fine, I just didn’t know if any of your school peeps had planned something.”

“I think they all went home.”

“Right. Well, we should at least be sure to go to the gym.”

“For sure.”

***

Bitty sent them each a pie, and Ransom left off studying to eat and join Holster’s video call in to the aftermath of Hausgiving. The day actually managed to feel festive after all, what with watching the parade and the dog show while making a bunch of recipes he’d learned from Bitty in the past few months, and then the pie and seeing all their friends again… not to mention leaning on Rans on the couch while things were in the oven.

He still wished he’d thought to go home soon enough, but even more, he wished he could pull all the important people in his life into one place for the day. It felt like they all kept getting spread out more and more. But maybe that’s what adult life was like? He'd never had to think about it before; there’d always been hockey as the reason  _he_ was the one who couldn’t be there. He’d never had to make the choice before.

Ransom went back to studying for “just a couple hours before bed,” so Holster retreated to his room and called his mom so he could listen to his sisters complain about who had stolen a too-large share of the mashed potatoes.

“Did you have a good day, baby?” his mom asked when she got the phone back and told the girls to go find a movie for everyone to watch. “We missed you.”

“I missed you, too. But yeah, I had a good day.”

“I’m so glad.”


End file.
